Dragon Sword was a game developed by the UK developer Interactive Studios designed to be in a similar vein to other N64 titles such as Gauntlet Legends or Castlevania. It was under development and even advertised in many places, but never fully released. Fear not, as the Dragon Sword rights have been obtained by someone with (hopefully) virtuous intentions.
The game had a lot of potential, it was intended to incorporate various stat-building RPG elements as the player traverses through the land of Avantaria to collect sword pieces to rebuild the Dragon Sword across 10 levels to free the Light God from the Darrc Dragon.
Sounds pretty cool right? The game was supposed to have a 2-player coop mode, and 4-player deathmatch. As you advance in the single-player mode, you unlock new weapons in the multiplayer modes.
Any way, a video is worth a thousand words, so have a look for yourself. This is footage from a pre-release leaked ROM, which you can have a look for yourself by downloading the development ROM here, using the password “avantaria”.
It is unclear as to why it was cancelled, but it’s likely to be because the game looked like it was going to be a dud. The publisher (MGM Interactive) probably decided that it wasn’t worth the money to finish development and promotion so it was never released.
The rebirth of Dragon Sword
A while back, I wrote about a kickstarter campaign where Pico Interactive was going to re-release 40 Winks on the N64. The same people have announced this in a tweet:
Someone just secured the rights of Dragon Sword for N64. With Source code. Hopefully the game can be finished.
Now, this could mean anything at this point. It doesn’t say if it was them, or if they were just keeping an eye on the trademark to the game. Nevertheless, we know that someone went through the effort of acquiring the rights to the IP and the source code, so it might be that we get an update soon enough announcing the release of the full game in a Kickstarter.
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